Local traditional customs
Like the whole country, the aborigines in Shenzhen also call the Spring Festival Chinese New Year. When the countryside enters the middle of the twelfth lunar month, it will make preparations, make rice cake powder, make new clothes, buy new shoes and hats and get a haircut. The 23rd to 25th is called "the year of divination". On the day when the Kitchen God was sent to heaven, every household burned incense and lit candles in front of the Kitchen God's throne, and some even prepared sweets, cakes and tea fruits for the ceremony, entrusting the Kitchen God to report the good and evil behaviors in the past year to the Jade Emperor and pray for him. Women are busy picking tea (cakes) and cleaning furniture. From this day on, there are many taboos, such as not swearing and lying.
On the afternoon of New Year's Eve, the door gods, Spring Festival couplets and kitchen gods were invited into the house to slaughter chickens and ducks. Three kinds of animals (chicken, fish, pork, the same below), bowls of white rice (with chopsticks), tea, wine, etc. , with incense sticks, worship heaven and earth and ancestors. For dinner, the family has a reunion dinner, and when they go out, they come back for dinner. There is nothing urgent. Outsiders will not accept it. In the evening, the whole family should wash "Dajishui" (with orange peel, grapefruit leaves, etc. ), say a few words of good luck while washing. After washing, the elders should give the younger generation lucky money. In the evening, every household began to light the New Year's lanterns, which didn't go out day and night until the third day of the Lunar New Year.
On the first day of the first month (the first day of the first month), families go to the ancestral temple to burn incense and set off firecrackers to welcome the arrival of the New Year. At lunch, I am a vegetarian, with vermicelli, red dates, yuba and other dishes. Lettuce must be eaten. In the past, rich people also ate Nostoc flagelliforme and made a fortune by homophonic. On this day, it is forbidden to kill, not to worship God, and not to give money or things to others.
On the second day of New Year's Day, called "Opening the Year", people began to stop killing three birds. Relatives, friends, neighbors, etc. Pay New Year greetings to each other and send "welfare" to the younger generation. The lion dance team and Kirin team also began to go out and visit villages to perform martial arts.
On the fourth day of Lunar New Year's Day, married women go back to their parents' homes to visit relatives.
On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, although the atmosphere of the New Year is still filled with the smell of "New Year's divination", the climax has passed and people begin to work or farm in the new year.
Several years passed until the Lantern Festival. Lantern Festival is commonly known as Lantern Festival. On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, there is a habit of making glutinous rice balls (sugar pills). In the countryside, every household hangs lights on the gate at night, and children play in the street with all kinds of colored lights. Last year, people who gave birth to boys also held a special lantern ceremony and hung lanterns in the ancestral hall until the end of the month. This is called "lighting". Some places are chosen in the first half of the first month. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), this custom was abolished and resumed in the late 1980s.
Entertainment folk custom
During the Spring Festival, residents in old Shenzhen, especially in Baoan County, will hold various folk dances, mainly lion dance, unicorn dance, dragon dance and fish lantern dance, which are distributed in various towns and villages. Among them, lion dance, unicorn dance and dragon dance are more common and have the most local characteristics. Lion dance and unicorn dance are distributed by genus. There are lion dances everywhere in Cantonese-speaking areas such as Xin 'an, Fuyong, Shajing, Songgang and Gong Ming. In Guanlan, Longhua, Longgang, Henggang, Pingshan, Pingdi, Shiyan, Kwai Chung and other places where Hakkas belong, unicorn dances are the majority.
Lion dancing and unicorn dancing are endowed with the desire to bring good luck and drive away evil spirits. The performance team is huge, with big gongs and drums and martial arts scenes with swords and halberds. On Chinese New Year holidays and auspicious days, the Lion Dance Team and the Kirin Team will transfer their ownership through the village, or perform in the open space, or go door to door to invite people to dance and sacrifice in the village. Lion dance is divided into "Wen lion" and "Wu lion" in performance. Shi Wen mainly shows the gentle demeanor of the lion, including sleeping, licking, shaking, scratching and rolling. "Wushi" shows the brave character of the lion, including jumping, falling, walking plum blossom piles, picking green, stepping on the ball and other difficult movements, which are similar in form and spirit and lifelike.
The performance of unicorn dance is very similar to that of lion dance. According to the traditional dance method, in the process of going down the mountain, picking green flowers and lying in the garden, all actions such as sleeping, waking up, scratching, shaking hair, licking hair, prancing, falling, climbing poles and playing are adopted, and the expression is vivid and realistic.
Dragon dance can be divided into "cloth dragon" and "fire dragon". "Bulong" is popular in Buji, Pinghu, Guanlan, Shiyan, Gong Ming and Longhua. "Bulong" is more than 4 feet long and is made of cloth and wire. It has a stick in its abdomen. Generally, 8 to 12 people hold staff and perform various dragon dance movements such as prancing, tumbling and lying down, which are vivid. This kind of dragon dance is considered to bring good luck, so it is often performed during the Spring Festival. "Fire Dragon" (also called grass dragon) is only popular in the fishermen's area of Nan 'ao Town in the east of Baoan. In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, many fishermen died because of the incurable cholera in the local area. Because of superstition, they thought they had met an evil spirit and asked the Dragon King to exorcise it. Therefore, straw is used to make a dragon shape, which is about 4 feet long and divided into more than ten sections. Each section has a stick for the performer to use, a light bulb is placed on the longan, and the dragon is full of incense. The performance is held on the second night of the first month of each year. In the dragon dance, every household will set off firecrackers and fireworks. When the dragon passes the front door of every house, it will worship three times, and then perform various dragon dancing postures and martial arts in an open space. Dragon dance lights are everywhere, very lively and spectacular. As the "dragon" swam, the band beat gongs and drums and crossed the streets. When the dragon dances, it shines up and down, just like a turbulent dragon. Dancing grass dragons is the favorite activity of fishermen in South Australia. The heroic spirit of the dragon dancers and the enthusiasm for watching the dancers constitute a grand and jubilant picture.